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Neurobiology

Fear thou not

Nature volume 421, pages 325–327 (2003)Cite this article

Mice lacking a certain neurotransmitter receptor have trouble forgetting scary experiences. This finding uncovers a fear-regulating feedback loop in the brain that might be at work in humans, too.

“Show me a man,” said the Roman writer Seneca, “who is not a slave; one is slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, and all men are slaves to fear.” There are few who would seriously challenge this 2,000-year-old conclusion, and fear of fear is probably one of the major motivations for studying emotions in general. Until quite recently, however, it was considered unfashionable for respectable brain scientists to investigate the molecular and cellular bases of the emotions. This has now changed, and we have ample information about the brain circuits that encode fear1. Writing last month in Cell, Shumyatsky and colleagues2 have added important details to the emerging picture. Besides exposing tricks used by the brain to manage fear, the new findings might, in the long run, pave the way to improved treatments for pathological fear responses such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Figure 1: Neuronal circuits and frightened mice.

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  1. the Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel

    Yadin Dudai

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  1. Yadin Dudai
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Correspondence to Yadin Dudai.

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Dudai, Y. Fear thou not. Nature 421, 325–327 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/421325a

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/421325a

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